Crickson's electric eye

I am married to Spiderbaby and live in Banbury, Oxfordshire after eight years living in the USA and Sweden. I am working and training as a clinical scientist for the NHS in Oxford.

There are now over ten years of photographs on my blog! It all started with a photograph I took on the 1st of May 2004... It's been a wonderful journey, thank you all who have shared it with me, and made this blogging community one I keep coming back to!

We're having an alien skull-face baby!

I'm so proud! Spiderbaby and I went official after an all-clear 12 week scan. So far everything has gone smoothly. The due date is around the 15th of July, so that's b*ggered up our plans to go to the olympics. Anyone wanna see the badminton?

What's next?

So as I said on Facebook, I quit my job. The reasons are many, and there was no one single precipitating event. It seemed like I'd given it my best but things were not going to improve. Since this is my blog I think I'm allowed a little one-sided bitching on here.

Reason 1. My contract has never been honoured. My contract states that I am entitled to subsidised membership of the university gym AKA an IKSU card. IKSU is a lavish sports centre next to the university. It is probably the largest sports facility in Europe. It is consequently rather expensive - full membership is something like 70 pounds a month. Despite asking several times my supervisor has for a year denied me this subsidy, claiming not to have the money. After a row on my return from France when she told me she had money to employ two new post-docs she reluctantly agreed to give me the IKSU card, but said the money would come out of my research and travel money. This is totally unacceptable. After this she said would only reimburse my membership fees at the end of my contract, leaving me to shoulder the significant full cost of the card for a year. My contract states that I get a subsidy, not a reimbursement. This is also unacceptable. I see no reason why I should have to fight for the benefits spelled out in my contract in this way.

Reason 2. I am not doing the job I signed up to. I came to Umeå to work on a project screening a chemical library for drugs that can inhibit a particular cellular process. When I started I was given an unrelated side-project on fundamental developmental cellular biology, something I have never really expressed an interest in, but side projects can often be good insurance in case the main project goes titsup. This side project is approximately 80% of my time. The application for the money supporting my post-doctoral fellowship makes no mention of this project. When, some time ago, I told her I wasn't very interested in the project I hoped that I'd be able to steer it into an area I might be more satisfied with. Instead she told me that there were eight applicants for my job and if I don't like it I can quit.

Reason 3. We just don't get on. Our working relationship is awful. Half the time I cannot ask her a simple question about a technical aspect of an experiment without being patronised or screamed at. She cannot complain about my lab work, as it is generally deemed satisfactory, so I get constant complaints about "my attitude" or the way I speak. These complaints are never about my behavior at a specific time or place, but more nebulous and impossible to counter or defend. I work very long hours, as much as 14 hours a day over several days. I accept this as part-and-parcel of a post-doc job, but I do expect to be treated with respect and gratitude for doing it. I feel like my supervisor's whipping boy and I'm sick of it.